A retired cold-case detective, a British fiance, and an art-collector cowboy walk into a bar. This is the joke that pops into my head as I sit down for dinner on the patio with dad, Floyd, and Henry. It's a quiet night on the ranch. Sarah and mom are getting dinner in town (you couldn't pay me a million dollars to witness that conversation) and Becca is reading a book on the porch swing, so it's just the three of us hunkering down at a table set for twice as many.
There's something theatrical about the scene. As if we're all actors waiting to take our places and recite our rehearsed lines. A little voice in my head keeps whispering, this can't be real. It's persistent. I wish it was the truth.
Dad cracks open a glass of sweating Corona. Floyd pours himself some lukewarm water from the carafe. Henry sits alone at the head of the table, quietly bewildered, like a party guest just realizing they don't know anyone else on the invite list. I should feel bad for him, but it's hard to feel bad for someone who mixes up french fries with potato chips and also eloped with your sister. Maybe I'm not a very sympathetic person --maybe I don't have the extra room inside of me to feel sympathy. All I feel is tired. Worn out.
"So," dad says. "Your friend."
"He's gone." I watch a droplet of condensation trickle down the side of dad's Corona, too exhausted to dredge up the proper emotional response. Becca and I stayed up until two in the morning searching for Ronan, but all we found was his rented tux jacket slung over a chain link fence. "Missing, I mean. Not that he's in danger. He's just being a dick."
"Language," dad reprimands.
"Hey, go easy on the kid, he's had a long day." Floyd tips his glass in my direction, and I feel a weary smile tug at my lips. He didn't get angry at me when I finally broke down and told him about Rachel's party. He just sent me outside to move flagstones from the driveway to the patio until my thoughts went mercifully quiet. It was an oddly paternal gesture. "And he's having girl trouble."
"That's not true," I say quickly. I'd rather drink a bottle of Tabasco than discuss my disaster of a love life in front of my dad.
Henry perks up. "Oh, what's her name?"
"Take a wild guess," Floyd says, shrugging one of his massive shoulders toward the front door. (Holy hell, I hope Becca isn't listening. She'd never let me hear the end of it.) "If you don't believe me, just watch how red Finn gets around her."
"It's not girl trouble," I insist. "Really. I don't even like her."
"You should buy her flowers," Henry says. "It worked for me."
I raise my eyebrows at him. "Yeah, a little too well."
There's a long pause, during which Dad downs the rest of his Corona, and Floyd heads to the kitchen to grab him a second beer. (I don't think I've ever seen Floyd drink. The only alcohol he keeps in the house is for my parents.) Henry chews on his lip and stares at the place-mat. Once again, I almost feel sorry for him, but not sorry enough to apologize.
I'm debating if I should sneak a drink of my own out of the fridge while everyone is busy glaring at each other, but the door swings up before I can muster the confidence. And, speaking of confidence, Ronan is back. He careens into the dining room like a driver falling asleep at the wheel. For some reason, he's wearing Andy's favorite Stevie Nicks t-shirt (the one she swears the Dreams singer breathed on at a concert) and a pair of basketball shorts. (Oliver's basketball shorts? I'm so confused.) He also smells like a pack of Marlboro's. Not a surprise. (I should seriously consider staging an intervention...)
Breathlessly, Ronan says, "Finn, I need to talk to you."
I snap to my feet, shoving my chair away from the table. "Are you shitting me?"
"Language!" dad exclaims.
"Hullo, Roman," Henry says cheerfully. "How are you doing?"
"I'm alright, all things considered. Has anyone told you that you look like Elton John?" As Henry touches his bald spot self-consciously, Ronan turns his attention on me. (I forget how intense he can be -- I feel like a deer caught in the headlights. You could turn people to stone with those eyes.) "I need to talk to you. Right now. It's important."
"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me where you've been. Becca and I stayed up all night looking for you!"
Ronan blinks. "Why?"
"Because -- because we thought you might be doing something stupid!"
"Well, that's a given."
"I thought you were going to a school dance with the Hills," dad says, slowly, like he's just putting together the pieces of our lie. No wonder he had to quit his job...
"Prom?" Henry asks hopefully.
"It's June," Floyd says.
Ronan is practically bouncing up and down now. "It's urgent."
I grab him by the elbow and lead him out of the room before he can make a scene. We end up by the Begay painting that captured his attention on our first day at the ranch. There's something smudged on his cheek -- dirt? Did he walk here? I resist the urge to wipe it away with my sleeve.
I start with the obvious. "What is wrong with you?"
"Do you want that list alphabetical, or chronological?"
"Shut up," I say. Ronan's brow furrows, and I feel a pulse of vicious satisfaction knowing that I've caught him off guard. "Just shut up. Stop talking for once in your life and let me finish my sentence. Where the hell were you? You'd better have a good explanation, or you can walk your pretentious ass back to New York, because I'm not dealing with this shit ever again. We found your jacket. Your jacket! Do you know how bad that looks? We thought Rachel kidnapped you, or, even worse, you pissed off another ghost. You could've been dead in a ditch somewhere for all we knew!"
"Ghosts? What? Also, am I allowed to speak now? I have to tell you something important. Actually important. I know why Rachel is in Dusty Valley."
I draw in a deep breath and remind myself, for the millionth time, that violence isn't the answer. "Okay, fine. Tell me."
Ronan rushes through his discovery at the library, taking on a feverish glint in his bloodshot eyes. He doesn't mention the ghost thing again. He also doesn't explain where he was last night. The only useful piece of information I manage to get is: "She's coming for the ranch next. You have to convince Floyd not to sell."
"He's not going to sell."
"You have to convince him," Ronan says. "Rachel will try to persuade him. She'll try to buy him out. She has the money. She knows how to manipulate people."
"Floyd isn't going to sell. Why do you care so much about the ranch, anyway?"
"I already told you why! Rachel is targeting --"
"That's not the full truth."
"Okay, maybe I'm sick and tired of people like Rachel getting whatever they want just because they can throw money and connections and fucking Cadillacs at their problems! It's a rigged game, and they keep winning it because everyone else is too scared or too broke to change the rules. It's selfish, and it's unfair, and it's giving me -- it's giving me a conniption!"
"Drink plum juice," I suggest.
Ronan squints his eyes at me, the way he always does when he's trying to judge if a sarcastic response is worth his time or not. "Just tell him," he says, and then he turns around and slumps up the stairs to the attic room.
"Tell him yourself!" I shout after him.
"Oh, spare me the dramatics," Ronan says. "I'm too hungover to guest star in your episode of Family Ties. Go stage a fight with young Elton John if you're that bored."
A door slams shut overhead. I kick the wall as hard as I can, knocking a dusty frame of a younger Floyd and a grinning, sandy-haired boy that I don't recognize. There's a blurry figure in the background -- my father, his head turning mid-photograph.
I kick the wall once again, for good measure. Then I follow Ronan up the stairs.
He's laying on his bed with a pillow pulled over his face when I walk in. The evening sunlight streams through the curtains, soft hues of purple and pink and gold. It's hard to be angry in such a beautiful place, but I've decided to put in the work. I settle into my anger as comfortably as someone returning to their childhood bedroom.
"Hey," I say.
Ronan doesn't respond.
"Hey," I say again. I'm not about to let him get the last word. Not after the shit he put us through last night. I don't even know what I want to say -- I just need for him (or anyone, anyone at all) to listen to me. "Hey, asshole."
This gets his attention. Ronan tosses the pillow to the side and scowls at me, which might've been intimidating if he wasn't wearing a Stevie Nicks t-shirts and someone else's shorts. "Hay is for horses. Which is ironic, because you're also full of horseshit."
"I don't think you understand what ironic means." And then I'm struck by one of the greatest ideas I've ever had. Thomas Edison himself (or Tesla, if you really want to get into it) would be jealous of the light-bulb above my head. I'm still angry, but now my anger has a purpose. A direction. Like electricity flowing through a current. "Ronan, you're a genius."
"Are you trying to sell me something?"
I laugh for the first time in days, and Ronan stares at me as if I've finally gone off my rocker. "No, I'm not," I say. "C'mon. There's something you need to see."